Bridging School and Reality | Brooke Griffin, PharmD of '21st Century PharmD'

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, hello, Brooke. Hi Mike. Pleasure to meet you and to have you on the show. Thank you 

[00:00:20] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks now. All 

[00:00:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: right, Brooke, for the people that haven't come across, you give us your, your name and tell us your, why are we talking? 

[00:00:33] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Sure. I'm Brooke Griffin.

Uh, I work at Midwestern university as a professor in pharmacy practice. I am care trained, did a residency in ambulatory care, and I've worked in ampere clinics all around Chicago land, my entire career. And most recently I launched a website called 21st century pharm d.com and in a really fun and positive way.

I'm just disrupting professional development for 

[00:00:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacy students, ambulatory care. What does that mean? 

[00:01:02] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Exactly? Yeah, that's a good question, Mike. And I joke around with the students that if you ask 10 different pharmacists what they do, you'll get 10 different responses. Uh, someone who's trained in am care has the ability to work in non dispensing roles, a clinical pharmacy in the outpatient setting.

So what that's looked like for me is a clinic that's attached to a community hospital where the medical residents would go see their patients for half day a week. And the rest of the time the medical residents are up on the floor. So there was a time that I worked with residents there, ambulatory care.

Pharmacists are the ones who sometimes run the anticoagulation. Diabetes clinic hypertension, chronic disease management, where patients make appointments to see the pharmacist. So they have a panel of patients. They have a schedule just like nurse practitioners do just like physicians do. There was one clinic I worked in where it was a high risk type of model where patients who were high utilizers of the health care system were referred to this one clinic.

So it was a patient centered medical home model. And we were all there under one roof, pharmacy dietician, physical therapy, social worker, it was a dream position. It was great. Uh, and we really saw some positive outcomes and some really sick patients. And when you get to utilize everybody's strengths on a team, that's where it really clicked for me like this 

[00:02:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: stuff.

All right. So you would say. The definition you said for your explanation, at least. And we're going to go with yours because I don't have anybody else to not have anybody else to ask right now. So I'm gonna just take your word for it. The other nine out of 10 can say what they want to, what broke, right.

Um, you said it's, did you say it's not something it's not in the pharmacy? Is that what you had said? Or if not in the 

[00:02:57] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: something I would say providing direct patient care and non dispensing roles. 

[00:03:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, non dispensing rolls. So you're not dispensing. You still could be in a pharmacy. You're just, you're just not, not dispensing.

Exactly. 

[00:03:09] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: So there are some pharmacists that will do a community pharmacy residency, and then become the clinical pharmacist for a large chain or grocery store. And those are the pharmacists that tend to float from site to site to do the blood pressure screenings, the diabetes screenings, those types of non dispensing clinical service.

[00:03:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Gotcha. And that would count in that definition as ambulatory care. 

[00:03:30] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yes. It fits under the umbrella. 

[00:03:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: Gotcha. All right. So, you also have college all in your LinkedIn stuff. What do you do? What relationship do you have with the college? Can I call you a teacher? 

[00:03:47] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yes. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So that is my primary role.

I work at the college of pharmacy in academia. It's been my only job ever since I completed the residency. And what a lot of colleges of pharmacies do is they contract their clinical pharmacists to sites. So they can precept students and provide patient care at the site. So in colleges of pharmacy, you'll have a large cohort of faculty who practice at their site and also come back to campus to teach.

And every college of pharmacy does it a little bit differently in terms of payment models, structure, uh, how many days they're at the site versus how many days are on campus? Every college does a little bit differently. So that's how I've been able to provide patient care at all these different sites.

It's just because of the contract that our college has had with the different health systems. 

[00:04:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: And how much of your time would you say is at I I'm the college grounds, the official ground, the perimeter of the college versus somewhere that's not on the grounds. 

[00:04:49] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah. Good question again. It's different for every faculty member at our school, and it's going to be different for all the colleges that all the academic academics you might interview.

But for me personally, I'm now only at my site one day. And I'm at the college, the rest of the time, because of the role, my role has changed the college and I have a different position. Now, I've taken on more of a mentoring role for the junior and mid-level faculty, but we have faculty members who spend four days of the week at their site and one day a week on campus.

So they have less 

[00:05:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: the sites being the different preceptor, different things around the area. 

[00:05:22] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Exactly. All the hospitals and clinics in and around Chicago land, where we have contracts between the college and the health system to place a pharmacist there. And they provide patient care and then precept students at the site.

So 

[00:05:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: you're, you're on the campus then four days a week, 

[00:05:40] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Actually, it's three for me because I've been part-time for 10 years. So I have one day at home, three days at the college, and one day at my site,

[00:05:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: one day at home. Part-time is that by your choice? Do you like that? 

[00:05:54] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yes, I picked, yes. I asked my college if they would consider it. Thankfully, they said, yes, I know it's not commonplace. And I'm certainly, I'm certainly a rarity, but, uh, the success that I've had being part-time has helped open doors for other part-time faculty members behind me.

So I'm very proud of it. 

[00:06:11] Mike Koelzer, Host: What do you do on your day at home? 

[00:06:13] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Wow. A bunch of things. I joined Toastmasters about a little over a year ago. Wow. So that's been a lot of fun just to improve some public speaking skills. 

[00:06:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: Okay. Wait a minute. I got, I gotta look at the week here. So Sunday you're at home Sunday and Saturday at home.

Yes. But you're saying you have another day at home? Yes. Same day each week. Yes. What day? Monday. Oh, that's a good day to have, 

[00:06:43] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: yeah, it was the day that we didn't have childcare lined up when my children were first born. So that's, that's the day that I asked for. 

[00:06:51] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's a good day to have off. I think 

[00:06:53] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: it's worked out.

It's worked out really. It's worked out really well and it helps, uh, get all the other stuff done that, um, working parents need to get done. So it helps out a lot. 

[00:07:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: Do you have less, did you ever have the Sunday blues when you were working full time? 

[00:07:14] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I ever had the Sunday 

[00:07:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: blues. And is there less, is there less now that you have Mondays?

I 

[00:07:20] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: wouldn't describe it as blues, but there's, there's a little bit of relief knowing that tomorrow we can get done, whatever we didn't get done Saturday and Sunday. So if there's an extra little extra load of laundry, gotta finish up some slides. Uh, you know, so I do some work. I try to protect that time as much as possible.

So it doesn't bleed into the non-work day, but, uh, yeah, especially on a personal front for our family. Yes. It gives a little bit of relief that we've got tomorrow to run to the 

[00:07:51] Mike Koelzer, Host: grocery. I would like it if some people have Monday off, but it's because they have, they've worked Saturday, you know, they've, they've been on a mail route or something like that.

And then they have Monday off, but that's, that's, that's pretty nice. Would it be better than having a Friday off? I don't know. 

[00:08:09] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: That's a good question. I got 

[00:08:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Friday, take off Friday too and Monday, and then just see which one you like. Yeah, that'd 

[00:08:16] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: be great. Some people told me that, you know, their spouse had Monday off, but then Tuesday just became their Monday.

And that was frustrating. Right. That hasn't been the case for me. I just feel so fortunate that I have the schedule and it's worked out for me. And that's why I like to tell that success to encourage managers and chairs of, uh, pharmacy practice departments that this works. We've proven that it works. You know, we're still productive.

We still contribute to the college. We're still contributing to the mission of the college and what. I am still doing everything you need to do. So did 

[00:08:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: that changed your, like, um, did that change your benefits or anything? Or are you still like full-time with that or, yeah, 

[00:08:55] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: it changed it, it changed almost everything.

Uh, so you know, the college of pharmacy gave me some terms to agree to when I asked to go for this. And one of them was that your workload wouldn't change. You still have to get everything done and your four days, and you would have to go down to a 0.8, uh, salary instead of 1.0, and that everything is prorated.

So, uh, all benefits are proportional to point aids. 

[00:09:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: Um, yeah, you have to pay for some of it. If you want to get full health care, for example, or something, you'd have to pay 20% of that or whatever. 

[00:09:32] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah. You know, I think at our institution for healthcare, you're considered full-time at 0.8, but not a point, but not.

Gotcha because we have one faculty member who's 0.6 and I know healthcare was, uh, a concern 

[00:09:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: for them. An issue there. Yeah. All right. So do you get a hundred percent done or do you say, oh, screw you guys. I'm at 0.8. I'm not going to do one. Do you get like 0.9 done or do you really get one done 1.0, done.

[00:10:05] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Well, it was so important to me to prove the success of this model because my company basically said, we believe in you. You're the first person to ask for this. It was 2010. I couldn't believe no one had ever asked before me. We had part-time faculty, but they had already been part-time when they were hired.

I was the first one to transition from full-time to part-time. So I had something to prove and I wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste. I wasn't going to let my administration think any less of me. Throwing in the towel at any point. So it hasn't all been easy because I try to protect that one day and not do work on that one day.

So yes, I am still required to get all of my stuff done in a regular work week. Um, and you know, I'm just so happy. We've been able to open the door for other faculty members and prove the model we've published on it. We've presented on it nationally and just try to encourage other leaders 

to 

[00:11:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: consider.

All right, Brooke, as a business owner, I'm not going to fall for it yet. I gotta ask him, I got to ask you something else. How many years did you work? Full-time there? 

[00:11:14] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: It was about 

[00:11:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: seven. Okay. So I'm your boss then. And I say to you, Hey Brooke, you're getting everything you used to get done in four days.

I'm sorry. I'd say, Brooke, you're getting everything done in four days. That used to take five days. Why were you loafing 20% of the time? What do you say to that? How can you get it done in four days there say, well, Brooke, you are screwing around for 20% of the time because this used to take you five days.

How do you answer that? I 

[00:11:54] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: would say Mike, 

[00:11:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: my not my neuron damn 

[00:11:58] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: business. I would say Mike, the day of the week that I am now home and not at work. I was providing direct patient care and. That's it. Yeah, so I'm not ethical that one day, so that's right. 

[00:12:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Gotcha. And, and you're doing so you're doing a hundred percent still, none of your whole five day job.

You, you were able to take that day off because you're not doing as much patient direct patient care 

[00:12:23] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: now. Yes. Yes. So I should clarify and say that the work requirements for the faculty position, those work requirements did not change, but I would, I was one let's say at the site. And one of the terms that my college set was, if you want to go forward with this, we have to find a replacement for you one day.

And I thought, how are we going to find this unicorn to work 0.2 FTE at, uh, am care sites? And it took a year and we found her. 

[00:12:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, she's great. Yeah. 

[00:12:54] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: She 

[00:12:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: was great. It worked out really well with my team. At the pharmacy here, I always had five or rather three full-time pharmacists. Not including myself, three full-timers that were covering the schedule.

And they all had like five weeks of paid time off a year. And that would always happen in the summer. So that's happening June, July, and August. And I'm like, well, that stinks. Cause now I'm, I'm working those three weeks typically. So what we went to is when we had to downsize, uh, this is back about nine, 10 years ago, I set up all full-time.

I set up all part-time pharmacists now. And so each of them are probably, like , eight of them. They're all probably I'm averaging about. Uh, let's, let's say, let's say six to eight hours a week. Something like that on average, some do 15, some do not too much at all, but the beauty of it is, is now when one of them's on vacation that I can, I only have to fill eight hours and typically someone's will say, sure, I'll pick up, I'll pick up another shift.

And so I think that's great to get more people involved. And then you, if you ever had to go to, you know, three days for some reason, then all of a sudden it's like, you're not reinventing the wheel because you've got this 0.2 person already there, and now they can go to 0.4 and so on. So it sounds like you said that a lot of stuff, you're a pioneer in this and a lot of stuff changes later on.

[00:14:31] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. And I think it really offers the employer a lot of flexibility with some of the high quality talent who they've already recruited and they don't have to worry about. Trying to fill an open position. When you already have someone who's already trained, who wants to be here, who's already turned loyalty to the institution.

Just makes sense. It's a win-win and that's what we're trying to tell. It's a win-win 

[00:14:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: well, and the other thing is that it mimics and mimics what it mimics, why I think pharmacy has shifted towards more of them, with what two thirds are women or something. And, and, and, and typically pharmacy attracts that because of the retail setting, people can come and go not be married to their job, you know, jump in, jump out.

It sort of lends itself to a part-time position. And to say that you can't do that in the college setting, just doesn't line up with the reality of what's happening in the world of pharmacy. Outside of, 

[00:15:43] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: yeah. I remember when I first started at the college, a couple of faculty members had left because they wanted a part-time position and they ended up going towards industry because that offers a really flexible kind of work life integration and a lot of work from home opportunities.

And, um, so other than community or shift work at a hospital or industry, how can we show pharmacy students that this is also a place that you can consider? 

[00:16:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Right. Exactly. All right. So, so Brooke, so all of a sudden you've been doing this then for, let's say nine, 10 years, and then all of a sudden. I'm going to Toastmasters.

I'm going to start this group on Facebook. I'm going to do this. What is this continuing thing? Or is this something that kicked in, in the last couple of years here for you? Yeah. 

[00:16:42] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: So good question, Mike. I've always been interested in my own professional development. Just soaking up any leadership opportunities.

I could podcasts blogs. I read a lot of books and then spent the past few years thinking about career development for myself, where, where am I headed? I realized that I don't like to sit still. I like to set challenges and I like the journey of trying to achieve them. And at the college, I reached a lot of my challenges, which is great and it feels great.

And now, um, my boss is asking me to be a mentor to the junior and mid-level faculty members, which is an awesome opportunity. And I, I love, I love my job. So it was. Uh, idea that I, I also want to think about my own career development and thinking about what's next, but I absolutely love my job. So a couple of things happened.

I entered a leadership mastermind group with Ashley Cleveland's Hayes, who I know you've interviewed on the podcast before. So she had a kind of a crew development leadership mastermind group. And I joined, and that's where I met Joanna Lewis, who runs the pharmacist side and Leslie Southern, who runs the lactation pharmacists.

And I really started meeting all of these pharmacists who have developed their passions into side projects, and I guess is the best way to describe it. And I kind of thought, well, what, what is a side passion of mine that would help me flex my creativity muscle. Right? At the same time, I started working with a group of fourth year students who were about to go on rotation and I realized that they were craving a type of professional development that didn't yet exist.

I think. Not quite prepared for life after graduation. And we did a couple of unique things. I had them on an academic rotation for the entire year, so I had different sets of students and we did a book club together on the book. They don't teach corporate in college by Alexandra Levit. So we talked about different chapters of the book, which isn't a pharmacy related book, but it's a real eye-opener for anyone who's about to graduate from any undergraduate or graduate level program.

We also arranged alumni meetups where I brought in alumni with various, uh, experiences in pharmacy and had them do like meet and greets with the students. So students got to practice networking in real time and ask questions. And then those really turned into lifeless lessons discussions from the alumni.

Right. And then I also had more intense one-on-one discussions with the students on their own career development, their own career questions, and they had a lot of them and I. I thought, okay, well, who, who can I direct them to? Who's doing professional development, kind of out there in the world. We all do it at our colleges of pharmacy, but there's a gap here and who's doing it.

And let me direct them to this person, this website that students can continue to look at. And then I couldn't find anyone. And I thought, well, maybe I could try. 

[00:19:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: They were doing it in college. But when the students were still in college and even wanted to look out into the universe of the internet, they couldn't find people.

Or was this like, after they graduated, they couldn't find 

[00:19:51] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: people. This is me just looking when I was working with a small group of students thinking about some of the questions that they had thinking about the conversations we had when we did this book club with the book, how can I help bridge the journey from student to graduate into the real world?

All these real world concepts that we talk about in pharmacy, how can I bring them back into the class? And at the college, I think we're doing a great job with professional development. We are just tied to the number of hours that we have with the students. And it's almost impossible to fit anything more into this really robust curriculum.

And a lot of times, when you do add things to the curriculum, you have to add things like grades and assessments and points to everything which is 

[00:20:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: at school is always wanting to do this on Dan. Great 

[00:20:41] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: to do that. I thought I just wanted to do something in a fun, innovative way to bring this content to students.

And, 

[00:20:49] Mike Koelzer, Host: and what you were finding, even though the students hadn't graduated yet on their weekends, you couldn't even say read these books or listen to this person because there wasn't as much out there. And when they graduated there wouldn't be as much out there pertinent to what the information they were looking 

[00:21:06] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: for.

W, well, we certainly have a few examples of people who let's say regularly post on LinkedIn, motivational articles. They highlight the cool things they're doing in the pharmacy. And I can certainly direct students to certain individuals. I was kind of looking for a one-stop shop. Somebody who could kind of provide this content to them in one place, 

[00:21:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: kind of like that, but also with a pharmacy 

[00:21:29] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: twist twist and form a community, which is what the Facebook group really has developed into is where can we connect with each other?

Or how can we scale this? So that students from across the country can start networking now, right. Interacting with each other online. And that's where students are online. So where can we meet them where they're at? 

[00:21:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. That's interesting. 

[00:21:49] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I'll tell you a quick story too. I remember I was. I was talking to a group of students in the classroom.

And every time I meet a new group of students, when I go in to facilitate a workshop or something, I always introduce myself and kind of explain my career journey thus far. And just say, if you, if you had any questions, come up from masterclass, I'm happy to talk to you about my journey or answer any questions you have about pharmacy.

And this one student came up to me, I'll never forget. And she said, you are the first person I've ever heard say that you love your job. And this was somebody who was going to graduate the next year. And I just thought about it, I don't think so. I don't think I'm the only pharmacist she knows who loves her job.

I just think I was the only one that maybe verbalized it in a way that reached her. And I was thinking about all the pharmacists she works with at her job, whether it's a hospital or community, there's just a lot of negativity out there, you know, and they see that all the time, but are they seeing the, they see the positives?

Are they seeing all the ones who love their job and why we love it? Are we doing a good enough job 

[00:22:49] Mike Koelzer, Host: explaining that that's really cool. Observation. And that they've, that they've voiced that to you. They're not getting it in a lot of the places, the online groups in the back in the day, the op-eds and the magazines, you know, and those kinds of things, they just weren't seeing it anywhere.

[00:23:08] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I was also really inspired by the Randy McDonough story. You know, he was the tenured faculty member who kept talking to students about practice transformation, and then decided he's going to do it. He's going to open some community pharmacies in Iowa and really prove to his students that he can do this and that this exists, and this is a potential.

And that was really inspiring for me. And I think I just want to show students, this is what it looks like to network. This is what developing a personal brand looks like. You know, watch me fall. Watch me get back up again. Watch me do funny videos. Watch me have a cheesy intro for the podcast. And you just watch someone put herself out there to give back to her profession.

And see what happens and it's, this is totally doable and you can do it too. I think 

[00:23:55] Mike Koelzer, Host: a lot of times there's a trust breakdown from students who are with someone who's only, only faculty. It's really cool that with the ambulatory connection you have, and with real life examples that they're seeing people out there that do love their job, and you can put it into a situation where they are?

They can get into a situation where they can do it. 

[00:24:24] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah. I think we're the role models and we, uh, owe it to the pharmacist coming behind us. I mean, if we want to see change in the profession that we hope to see, we have to empower them in ways that they can, that their ideas matter, that they're important and that they don't have to conform to traditionalist views.

They don't have to practice pharmacy the way it's been practiced for the past 50 years. 

[00:24:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. A few years ago when you started this, some of these thoughts was this a maturation of needs that you saw come along that you decided to funnel? Or do you think things have changed where there's finally a need for someone like you to rise up and others to rise up?

Or has that always been lacking? 

[00:25:20] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: That's a good question, Mike. I, I don't know if this is, will entirely answer your question, but I know that we've seen a change in the type of students that have come into pharmacy school. And it's just speaking in general terms, I'm not speaking to Ed, to every student that's out there, but for the most part, what we found is that students have a hard time prioritizing everything that's going on.

In their life, especially at home, it just seems like there are more stressors that our students today are facing than they faced in the past. Things like food insecurity, housing insecurity, financial insecurity. We know student loan debt is bigger than it's ever been before. Uh, we know that a lot of our students are caregivers for either their own children or some members of the family.

Sometimes they're the first person to go to college. There's a lot of pressure on them for some students. This isn't their field of choice, and they're still trying to navigate the pressures of their family that have kind of forced them into pharmacy. And you can kind of tell who wants to be there and who doesn't want to be there.

So students have had a harder time coping with even some kind of little dips that you tend to encounter in pharmacy school, like a low exam score, or, you know, even getting an F in a course, they're, they're not able to rebound as well. If it's what they've done in the past, we've seen an increase in anxiety.

We've seen testing anxiety. Um, and so all of these factors coming in, uh, we know that the student is a different type of student. We know that their learning style is different. And I think one of the things that faculty struggle with is we have to adapt how we teach our students in a way that will reach them.

And it's a way that we weren't taught. So we were taught in a very traditional didactic, go to lecture, write your own notes. So when stuff comes to make sure you're prepared for the exam and it's different now they absorb the material differently. They watch it differently. They soak it in differently.

They don't use index cards, you know, things that we have to adapt to, uh, as, as, as professors. So the type of student is different. We know they're online more, we know they're in a virtual space. What can we offer them that will fit their attention span to get some of these concepts across? So. I'm still very much in a trial and error zone.

I'm still very much in a learning zone. I'm trying to get to know my audience and figure out what kinds of things would be valuable to them. I know they value creativity. I know they value ideas. I know they value innovation and I know they lack mentorship. That's come up quite often, especially the students that have reached out to me, they're usually assigned a mentor when they come to pharmacy school.

But if it's a mismatch for, it likely could be. If you're assigned a mentor, they have a hard time figuring out who would be the right person to talk to. And even if they do have the courage to talk about their ideas, sometimes the mentors kind of steer them in a direction that's more traditional. 

[00:28:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is that a mentor in the flake?

Like a faculty mentor of some sort? Yes. And each one probably has 10 students or something like that. Wait a minute now because you're actually being a mentor to other teachers, is that right? 

[00:28:37] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: So, we have a chair of the department, uh, and, uh, that's my boss, she's over all of the pharmacy practice faculty members.

And then we have two vice chairs. I'm one of them vice chair of clinical services and, uh, the other vice chairs, vice chair of teaching and learning. And we each have a cohort of faculty members who we help with workload planning, mentoring, uh, precepting, everything. 

[00:29:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, that's interesting. What, what classes are you teaching?

Like if someone signs up for a Brooke class, what is it? 

[00:29:10] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: So my colleague and I, we, co-direct a women's health elective, so that's once a year for 10 weeks. And then for required classes, I teach in the therapeutic sequence. So I teach a lot of women's health topics, contraception, menopause. 

[00:29:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: Okay. Interesting.

Is your mentorship of your colleagues? How much does that interweave into. The 21st century pharmacist and so on. Is that like, uh, is that included or is that more of the job? And you're more interested like current students. 

[00:29:51] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: So for my job, when I mentor other faculty members, that's completely separate and we just, yeah, we just focus on what the faculty members' needs are at the time.

[00:30:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: You're not looking at life dreams and all that stuff with them. You're just like 

[00:30:06] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: sometimes, sometimes if it comes up, then the faculty member is super pumped about a certain area. They're not sure how to go about how to navigate, how to network, how to get their ideas out there in a certain area or a certain space.

We'll talk about that. And sometimes the sessions are just to talk about their workload at the college and how to get it all done. Sometimes we talk about, you know, work-life integration and we have a lot of parents of young kids so that we can talk about. Yeah. 

[00:30:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: And it could just be like, we want, we want Snickers in the vending machines instead of $100,000 dollar bars under those numbers.

[00:30:41] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. It could be that too. Yeah. 

[00:30:43] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's a whole game. That's not, and that's not, not important. 

[00:30:46] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Exactly. Right. So we are, you know, I have an open door policy. Um, I've asked them if they want to just put anonymous notes in my mailbox if they don't want to come talk to me. But, uh, everyone seems pretty comfortable coming with all of their tasks from Snickers to other bigger things.

[00:31:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: How do you like that anonymous? Um, do you get much anonymous feedback? I'm always deciding whether I want to deal with anonymity or not from people. Well, it's 

[00:31:12] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: interesting. I've thrown it out there before. I didn't have any takers, but I have been doing some reading on the 360 degree reviews where you kind of put it to put some questions out there and those responses would all come back.

[00:31:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, gotcha. So you almost like you're wanting those on your giving questions and so 

[00:31:31] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: on. Yes. Yes. So I've toyed with that idea. I haven't actually done that yet, but as faculty members, we're really used to anonymous comments because that's the feedback we get from students on our evaluations. So you develop a really thick skin from reading 

[00:31:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: those.

Yeah. It's more like dealing with the internet because the internet you're, I mean, you know, people have their usernames, but it's basically anonymous. It 

[00:31:58] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: is. Yeah. And so we've seen, uh, we've seen some comments that have been really unprofessional from students. I mean, not in a, not even in a constructive way this really, and we wonder if it's because this generation has been posting anonymously their entire life, their entire lives.

So, 

[00:32:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. Um, that's 

[00:32:22] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: interesting. Yeah, it's just, it comes with the. 

[00:32:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So here's where I want to ask you this, Brooke. So tell me if you have one, where are you in 10 years with not so much your schooling, but with some of the stuff you're starting now with Toastmasters and the website podcast. Cause right, you've got it.

You got four, five or six podcasts additions and 

[00:32:55] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: uh, three so far. And you know, like I have you to thank. Yes. It's a fun, it's a funny story actually, because one of those, 

[00:33:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: No one ever thinks we might not eat well. My kids don't think of me. That's a given my wife always thinks of me. I try to, at least I tried to make the bed every morning.

Um, besides that I don't get, I don't get many people 

[00:33:18] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: so, 

[00:33:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, I am honored. And I accept that. Thank you. And if you ever want to thank me for anything else, just let me know. You can even do it anonymously. 

[00:33:32] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I was thinking about a podcast for, I dunno, not long a month or two, and thinking about what kinds of things would I talk about?

What would we say? And then I had this idea of just interviewing students and I thought how much I already loved getting their stories out there, their, their names out there and getting them some visibility. So I thought, okay, great. I'm going to interview students for this podcast. And I had already had an interview set up with.

Just to talk about her story. And I was going to just post it in the Facebook group. And when we did the interview, uh, we'd recorded it on zoom. And I said to her that I'm thinking about doing a podcast just for students. You might be my first guest. And she said, okay, great. And I said, so I don't know yet, if this will be posted as a video or audio.

And she said, that's fine. I don't care either one. And I was going to take winter break to research how to do a podcast. And I did, and I read a couple of blogs and a couple of articles and I watched a webinar on it. And basically I realized that I needed a microphone for a hundred dollars and I needed some editing software.

And I thought, okay, I guess I'm not ready for this yet. So I kind of scrapped the idea and then you invited me to be a guest. And I was so excited and I clicked on your link to listen to some of your past episodes and right in the top pair, top hand corner of the screen, it said, I want to start a podcast, click here, five easy steps.

And I thought, well, how easy could this really be five steps. And then boom, boom, boom. Uploaded her audio. And it was done. I didn't need the microphone. I didn't need any editing. I mean, I would probably need those things someday, but the podcast was born. So thank you, 

[00:35:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: Mike. Yes, you are.

You are. No, well, you're welcome. But what that is is anchor, which I've done. Anchor was bought by Spotify. Um, so they're, they're pretty big players, but, um, they've, they've taken a process which was kind of a mystery and made it simple. And I came across that one day. And so now, for example, I've always had a microphone.

I've always kind of liked some, some, you know, editing in that. And then I use a program called audacity. So I edit some things on that. And then what I'll do is I'll upload this to the anchor, which then sends it out to a dozen different sites and so on. But. With anchor, they can start right on just basically that was my first couple podcasts, just talking into the phone and no editing and nothing.

And that's a saying of mine, it's like, just do the damn thing, you know, just, just do it. And, I actually had a couple of things. They weren't, they weren't interviews. They were just me speaking. And I went back and actually deleted those. I just didn't even want them out there anymore. Um, but sometimes you just gotta do the damn thing and, and you know that to break once you do it, it's like, all right.

Yeah, I've done it. Cause you can, you can make stuff. What, what's the phrase? You know, perfection is the enemy of good enough or something like that. You can do that 

[00:36:36] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: forever. And you know, I'm one of those rare pharmacists. Who's not. I'm actually not a perfectionist and they're kind of hard to find in pharmacies.

So, um, 

[00:36:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well I'm good at not being a perfectionist, you should ask my customers and my staff. 

[00:36:51] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I know there are some downfalls to it. One of the positives is that you always know that Don is better than perfect and you'll never be afraid to start. If you're, if you're not a perfectionist, you'll never be afraid to start.

And there's that famous quote that I think it's Martin Luther king. You don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have to see the first step. So yeah, that's been a mantra of mine too. So I agree 

[00:37:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: with you, I've been very proud of myself. I, no, one's going to be able to hear this, but I put together years ago, I put together a, I wrote some songs and put together my own album and I finished it and I've got a couple of books on Amazon that I finished.

They don't sell anything crazy like that on Amazon. They're just kind of there, but the point is it's hard to finish stuff. You know, it's hard to finish stuff. I tell my kids that with college it's like you guys, it doesn't matter so much anymore who you are. I mean, it's not a degree like pharmacy, but if they're in some other field, people are looking for you to graduate college, to see that you've finished something.

That's what they're looking for. And so it's fun to finish a podcast or to finish a book or to finish an album or to finish, you know, something, there's a lot of joy in that. But if you wait for that perfection, which is that constant fight, you're, you're never gonna, you're never gonna do it. 

[00:38:08] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. Right.

And I love the messages that are coming across from the students. I feel like they're wise beyond their years. And I think they're inspiring. I get inspired just by hearing these students' stories and what they're already thinking and doing as a student they're light years ahead of where I was when I was a student.

[00:38:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's fun too. I bet. Talk to them at that level on the podcast because. If you came across some of the stuff that we all right, including the students on social media, you would think that's their level of, of depth, you know? And it's like, that's not very deep. My kids say, dad, you're old. You don't understand today's humor and the memes and stuff like that.

I'm like, all right. All right. You probably don't understand Laurel and Hardy. How about Abbott and Costello? 

[00:38:59] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Who's on first. Who's on first. 

[00:39:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yes. Yeah. And Louis and you know, Lucy, Lucille ball. So, you know, there's an old fart. I don't understand memes. I get all of it. I get it. I usually can't see it though, because their damn screens are always cracked.

You know? So they'll say, dad, look at, look at this one and I'll say, wow, look at this. I gotta put it in my own hand because you gotta put it at the right distance, you know, and then they've got these and then their batteries are bad. So they got these things. 30%, you know, and then the screens are cracked and it's like, I can't see anything on.

And they're like, well, you won't understand it anyways. And I want to fix your damn phone and then at least give me a chance, you know?

All right. So back to this question, 10, 10 years from now, now that you've been, um, you know, talking to Ashley and you've and, and you, is it safe to say you watch some of Gary V's stuff? Yes, I do. Right. Cause I saw that as, as he's an influencer of yours and so on. Where are you with this stuff in 10 years?

Wild dream. Where are you with this stuff? 

[00:40:16] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Wow. I don't know, Mike, I feel like I'm still in infancy here creating. I'm still in the zone of building this and figuring out where the value really lies. I think one thing I've learned is that we can't make assumptions about what students are interested in, what drives them, what they find valuable.

And I don't know if we do a good enough job asking them what they're looking for. So for the first time I'm doing that myself, knowing that that was always a deficit of mine and just trying to put content out there that would speak to them in a different way. So 10 years from now, I would love to keep doing this.

I would love my challenge for the podcast. I have a podcast challenge to interview at least one student from every college of pharmacy. So that puts us at 140 something 

[00:41:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: episodes. That's really cool. That's a cool idea. Getting different views from them. Yes. And then at the end they have to rate their Dean. Oh no,

They got to rate the Dean and then everybody held up. Everybody will hold on for the whole podcast. Not that it wouldn't be interesting, but they hold on for the whole thing. And then they rate the Dean, you know, I'm like, 

[00:41:36] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I still want a job, you know? 

[00:41:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: No, you do, you do 140 of them, but you do yours last.

And by that time, it won't matter. It won't matter. You know, that'd be at least maybe three years, you know, 140 or something like that. No, here's what I think that you latched on to Brooke. We were talking earlier. I think that mentorship of people who love pharmacy, I think that is something that is a need.

And that's where I think that the value of the internet comes from the worldwide availability to find someone. An independent pharmacist is not a fun person to talk to now when they might be one of the 50% that are closing in the next two years from all the PBM stuff, you know? And so the odds have gone significantly down of talking to someone that you can say, I'm going to talk to this person, but it's probably best.

I mean, it's fair to get both sides, but it's probably better to have someone that ultimately loves it, but then gives both sides. Or maybe not. Maybe you want people to, maybe you want people to get talked out of it. You know, maybe there's a, you know, maybe there's a place to go for people that want to get talked out of it, but that I see you as connecting all that, what 

[00:43:09] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I'm trying to bring more of the pharmacy to the real world.

To the students at a level that makes sense. We're still, we still have students that have worked at big chain pharmacies for years from high school students to technicians now to insurance and they're, they don't understand, they've never been taught anything about metrics, DIR fees, PBMs, and they still hope to get a job with some of these big corporations after graduation, even knowing all the buzz of what's going 

[00:43:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: on, they've worked for 

[00:43:43] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: the students who worked for big 

[00:43:44] Mike Koelzer, Host: chain, the big chains, but they don't, but they don't hear them, they don't hear the DHRs and PBMs because they're not responsible for that.

Is that what you're saying? 

[00:43:54] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Well, yeah. I mean, even there's practicing pharmacists that don't quite understand why there's so much pressure to fill 

[00:44:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: fulfill. They're not maybe talking to the people, making those decisions or 

[00:44:06] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: whatever. Agreed, agreed. So the people, the frontline staff, don't always, aren't always clued into corporate.

Measures corporate policies, corporate. Interesting. Why the, the, we always come back to the Y, especially when I talk to my students, if they, we always come back to the Y and the pharmacy, I think that piece of communication has been missing for a long time. And we can see it in our students that still really crave these types of positions.

Even though for a lot of us, we feel like the writing's on the wall, that community pharmacy is going to look a lot different in the next five to 

[00:44:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: 10 years. They might've even gone into an independent pharmacy thinking that they would get all of this stuff. But the owner is the only one who may be bitching about this stuff by this time, he's maybe already an alcoholic.

He's at the corner bar, you know, trying to deal with life. And so, you know, they're either getting him he's either at the bar or they get him when he comes back. Drunk and, and the weight lifted off of him and he's not complaining about the DIY RS and PBMs and stuff like that because they didn't get to him in the morning when he was sober.

[00:45:21] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. And I think, I think 

[00:45:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: this is all figurative language. Of course, 

[00:45:26] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: you're not speaking about anyone. I'm not saying, I don't know. And I think you, I think you bring up a good point because my challenge is not to just paint the picture that pharmacy's all mosey and that it's the most wonderful profession out there.

There are, there is the good, the bad and the ugly, but let's, let's talk about it. Let's bring that information to the students so that they can make really informed decisions. Let's talk about professional development at the professional level, at the personal level. Like what, what do you need to know about yourself?

So you put yourself in the best position to succeed. We talked to the students about, you know, don't just think about what's going to be. You know, should I choose hospital or retail or do I really need a residency? What's going to offer you the most growth over time. What's going to offer you the most learning over time?

What's gonna make you skip on the way to work and to your parking lot at the end of the day, when you know that you left having a really fulfilling day. And if you haven't found that yet, keep talking to people because there are pharmacists out there that have these types of jobs. Maybe you just haven't been exposed to them yet.

[00:46:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: Would you say that you should get to them beforehand? They're even in pharmacy school, in case they decide that, you know, they've talked, they've had, uh, not just surfacey stuff, but they've had a heart to heart with enough people to say, that's not their road. 

[00:46:45] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yes, I would agree. But I'm going to tell you it's tricky because when students enter pharmacy school, they usually are only familiar with the community retail setting and may have heard of a hospital setting to try to introduce all the other avenues of pharmacy.

It gets a little tricky. Um, and then we find that when students enter pharmacy school and we start to educate them on all the different avenues of a career, sometimes it just, it goes way over their head for one reason or another, they don't feel like it's, they want to learn about it at that time. And when they go on rotations or they're about to go on rotation, it hits them.

Like, I still don't know what I want to do. Well, did you go to any of the alumni breakfast? We set up since your. To network and interact with people in different fields. Even though we have, we have trouble with our business courses, you know, management, pharmacy management, things like that. We've, we've moved it around in the curriculum, trying to hit the students at the sweet spot.

If he gets to them too early, they don't, they don't unders they don't understand the value and the need to hear about quality metrics and five star ratings and the business side of pharmacy. Yeah. Yet, you know, some, you know, so we're trying to find the sweet spot of when to give students that information so that they feel like it's.

[00:47:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, I did the same thing. I remember being in pharmacy school and they'd be talking about, you know, asset ratios and debt ratios. And, you know, there's a, there were a handful of them, you know, they say that you should do this. And I remember feeling on top of the world and coming back and talking to my dad, you know, and I said, I said, dad, this is what we have to do.

This is what we have to do to be profitable like this. And he said, and my dad, I don't have too many memories of him, like shunning me, or like just totally dismissing something. But he's like, I don't need that. I just need to see that I bought this below this cost and this and this and that.

And it's kind of like that wasn't the right time for him to know it. And he was, he was already 60. It wasn't the right time for me because it was just like fluff. When would I have, when would that have really had an impact? I mean, I don't really know. Maybe like maybe like three years after graduation or 

[00:48:55] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: something.

Yeah, it's a tough question. We grapple with it. You know, the stuff that some people consider fluff, even just management spot styles, leadership styles, competitive versus cooperative environments, things like that. It's just, it's hard to know when is the right time that pharmacy students can 

[00:49:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: absorb it? We just got a new Labrador and today she ate some ibuprofen.

And now right now, as we speak, she's at the vet and she's got an Ivy flushing out her bladder or something like that. So is it fun to have, is it always great to have a puppy? No, but most people get them because they've talked to the right people or they've had the experiences. So with pharmacy, you gotta be careful who the students are talking to when to see if you know they're getting someone on a bad day, but overall they enjoy things.

You know, or vice versa, you've got one where someone might love community pharmacy, but they haven't touched the PBM or DIR or clawbacks or any of that kind of stuff yet. 

[00:49:58] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. And I think that gets tricky when you are assigned that one mentor, when you enter a pharmacy school and you think that if you don't have a good connection or you feel like you want to branch out and talk to somebody new, you have to take it upon yourself to introduce yourself to more professors.

And for some of our students, especially introverted students. And for some of our students culturally, it's, it's not, it's not always, uh, looked at as appropriate to raise their hand in class, even to ask questions. If the professor is just, we all have different backgrounds and expectations of the student teacher relationship.

[00:50:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. And what are they going to ask? Do you like that? You know, do you like, are you having a good week? You know, or something like that, you know, you're not going to ask that. Right. So Brooke, with your three or three days, like at the school and. What you have going on with teaching and then mentoring the staff and so on, it kind of seems like you haven't had an outlet for these thoughts.

Have you even been able to deal one on one with helping students through some of these thoughts? Or is this like a blossoming for you now have these ideas with the website and the podcast and that, or do you have time during the week to even do this live with anybody? 

[00:51:16] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah, that's a really good question, Mike.

I think it's probably a mixture of both. I do have a set of students who were assigned to me. Like we kind of talked about if you're their mentor, right. As their mentor, I have 10 students from the first year and 10 students from the third year. And so I work with them. One-on-one gotcha. Whenever they feel the need.

And we have some group lunches that we go to. So we do exercise and do some of these conversations in that kind of manner. Gotcha. On the other hand, in terms of professional development and the ideas that I have that I'm trying to bring to a larger scale, to help more students that are out there. Yeah.

Academia is interesting because it takes a very long time to make change. Like right now we are planning things for 2021 and 2022. It's hard to change things on the fly and introduce something, introduce a new concept and say, we're going to run with this. It's just, that's the academia puzzle that we're all in.

So I think having the website and the podcast allows me to have. Uh, control and creativity over some of these ideas that I have and getting them out into the world a little bit faster. 

[00:52:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, that's 

[00:52:26] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: great. So I think, I think that's kind of scratches that itch at the same time, bringing my ideas to the university because I want to serve those students as well.

But what else could I do with some of these ideas that I have? 

[00:52:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's really great. Now, Brooke, arguably, there are some skills that you don't have where a teacher would look at you. If you were teaching, what's something that you stink at in pharmacy, 

[00:52:51] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: uh, like a therapeutic area. You mean like a, 

[00:52:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: or like biochem.

I mean, is there anything that you'd not like? That you're not very good at 

[00:52:58] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah maybe medchem 

[00:53:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right medchem And so the teachers are sitting there and they say, what the hell Brooke's teaching medchem to these students. They're not gonna, that's not right. They're not gonna get what they need.

What would you give me? Right. 

[00:53:16] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Okay. 

[00:53:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: They might say that. 

[00:53:18] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:53:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: You say the same thing about some of these 10 students that have a crappy mentor? What do you mean? Just as much as they say Brooke shouldn't be teaching medchem Do you look at some of these mentors, these faculty, staff, mentors, and say I feel sorry for those 10 students, they're not going to get a very good grade, they don't have a very good mentor.

[00:53:47] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Uh, 

no, I don't say that 

[00:53:49] Mike Koelzer, Host: come on. 

[00:53:49] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I don't want, 

[00:53:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: all right. 

You think about other pharmacies, do you think about other pharmacy schools, could you, could you picture another mentor at another pharmacy school thinking that don't you ever say to yourself? I wish those 10 students had me. Instead of professor Bob don't you ever let 

[00:54:13] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Never 

[00:54:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: come on?

[00:54:14] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Never No, but I will tell you why, because they're all good. They're all good. Everybody has their own strengths. And I think what needs to happen is that students have to align with someone that can help them through their own journey. So I think what students have told me is that, for example, the first person I interviewed for the podcast, she had some ideas about a new space in pharmacy with medicine and anti-doping, and she had the courage to get her idea out there, out of her head, out of her mouth, to certain professors.

And she heard some, why don't we steer you in an M care direction? That seems like a better fit. No, one's done that before. So, or if somebody did it and tried it and it didn't work. Come back over here to this area. 

[00:55:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: It might've been leaning towards that, but it was the, it wasn't satisfied by M carer, 

[00:55:11] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: right?

So maybe that's not exactly what went down, but that was the impression that the student got from that conversation. So I think as mentors, we have a responsibility to listen to what the students are asking to listen to what they're saying. And don't just worry about what's the best piece of advice I can give to the student right now that may not be what they need at the moment.

[00:55:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: A mentor just doesn't want to be dismissive and saying, well, that's a good idea, but we don't do it. You know? Because they don't, sometimes they don't know where to push them. So that's where your stuff comes into 

[00:55:41] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: play. And I don't think people are doing this intentionally, I don't think mentally, you know, downplaying somebody's ideas.

I think you just have to be really careful about the language we're using when someone does come to us with an idea or a question or anxiety or food insecurity or. Test-taking problems. What does food 

[00:56:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: insecurity means? 

[00:56:06] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Students don't know where their next meal is coming from. They don't have, yeah, they don't have.

And what we're finding is that it's not just, it's not inner city schools. It's, it's, uh, it's happening in urban schools like mine. So, um, urban, suburban schools like mine at the pharmacy level at the pharmacy level. So there's been some work with, um, AACP who is the American association of colleges of pharmacy.

Um, they're trying to just increase awareness that students may need help with access to food. And so there are some schools that even have food pantries that students can walk into and pick up some things. And maybe it's related to the increased tuition across the country. Um, maybe it's related to increasing rent across the country.

Um, other stressors that students have going on. 

[00:56:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Our issues at home where they don't feel comfortable telling their family, they need this for that. 

[00:57:03] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. Right. So me as an individual faculty member, how would I even know how to approach a situation like that? If a student came to me and said, they're hungry, you know, isn't even something I would have thought about before.

So even on your, not 

[00:57:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: even on your radar, 

[00:57:19] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: right? So I think a separate one is just increasing awareness that the students need today. Okay. 

[00:57:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: Fricking needs different needs. We have a program in grand rapids called kid's food basket, and it's for elementary kids, but they give them a sack lunch at three o'clock when they leave, that's their dinner, because they just don't know kids.

Aren't learning when they're hungry. And a lot of kids, their last meal is their school lunch at noon or whatever. And they don't need to get it until they come back the next day. So it's really something. Yeah. There's a lot of, a lot of different needs like that out there. So Brooke. 10 years again, 10 years again, I'm seeing that you got this love of that connection then of the men of matching the mentors with the students.

That's fascinating. I think that's something that before we talked, I, I just w I just, you know, I just think it's there. I just didn't think about it. There's a lot of stuff I don't think about, but I didn't think about that. 

[00:58:24] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Thanks, Mike. I mean, she really just comes from, I feel like as pharmacists, we have a responsibility to help the profession behind us.

Who's coming behind us and we all have strengths and we could be using them to mentor somebody in our lives. You and I think it was really eye opening to me when someone once told me, you know, I would think I was looking for some coaching and mentoring and someone said to me, well, they don't even, they don't even know whether you're a mentor.

So why would you expect anything from them? I thought, well, that's, that's really interesting, you know, Who's in my life who is expecting me to mentor and coach them. And I'm not just, I'm not there for them in a certain way. So I've been doing just a lot of reading and writing about mentoring and kind of what this looks like.

And it doesn't have to be a specific formal task. Like, will you be my mentor? But how can we help students feel like they have someone to lean on through this process? It could be a practicing pharmacist. It could be a faculty member. It could be an alumni. And for most of our colleges, we have a really robust alumni population doing really cool things in finding out how we can bring them back to the college level and give back to their Alma mater by the students who are there.

I just think there's so much potential right then. So there's that. And then there's the students who are telling me that they're asking for this, that they don't feel like they don't have somebody right now. How is this happening? Why is this gap? Why does it say so? 

[00:59:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: We had mentioned podcasting and podcasting, besides the ability to get this done.

Like we talked about on the phone with anchor and, and things like that. There's this, um, psychiatrist that I follow on YouTube and things like that. And. He said that one of the reasons, and he's got a big following, um, along with, you know, let's say Joe Rogan, who's got big filings and these shows are like an hour, two hours long, sometimes two and a half hour long.

And I'm even surprised that some of my shows, the ones that are longer, even get more listenership amazingly. And personally, I think people turned us off after probably 10 minutes of being here on my balcony. And so nobody knows this, but like my shows that go over an hour is just dead space at the end.

It's just me making dead sounds. Now, you know, one of my daughters, you know, she's too cool for me because I'm the dad, you know? And she said, we'll be listening to something. And as soon as I like something, she doesn't like it anymore. So I love, like, I love Billie, Billie Eilish has stuff, you know?

Cause I'm fascinated that she did it in her bedroom and, and her brother, Phineas is doing this right inside this little, little room. And so I'm, I'm fascinated by it and love her stuff. But as soon as I like it, she does grace. My daughter doesn't, it's not cool anymore. So she's got to stop listening to it.

So she said, dad, I listened to stuff that nobody else really listens to. So I got the idea. I said, grace, if you really want to listen to something that nobody does. Nobody else listens to you should listen to my music.

Um, so, so apparently she doesn't want something that nobody's listened to. She needed something that at least some people would listen to. Um, anyways, this long form of podcasting, I think it's really cool. I think you're onto something. I think it's really cool. Media. I Haven't done that before. Think about it.

Think about a Brook. Anytime there's been an interview, let's say a newscast. The newscast is two or three minutes long, right? They're not giving both sides. You either have a pharmacist on there saying that they went out of business and complaining about PBMs or large things. And they get three minutes of that.

Or you're getting a brochure somewhere that has either one page or one minute there, they went to the college and they sat in the auditorium and it was a welcome to campus day. And they had people saying, we love pharmacy and we love this. It's all these quick, quick media things over the last.

20 years that that have been on these new shows or the today show or something like this, there was never a chance for a student to listen to someone like you talk about something for an hour and give both sides up and down and share emotions and share backstories and share dreams and share failures and things like that.

It was never there. It was a microphone in the face how's pharmacy. We love it. Cut to commercials, or it was what's going on with your pharmacy while we closed down. Everything's terrible. Go to the commercial. So this is the first time in history where people are able to hear both sides. And I think that you've, you've nailed it with your website, with your.

Group. And especially with your podcast, just letting people talk. And no one has to listen to it. Believe me. I know no one has to listen to mine, but, um, no one has listened to it, but it's the first time in history that people are getting the full exposure. It's just, it's never been around in history before.

[01:04:07] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Well, Mike, I really appreciate you saying that because I honestly didn't do a search to see if anyone has a podcast with pharmacy students on it before I launched. It's just like we said before, just do it, just launch it. Uh, so there could be one out there and I'm sure students have been interviewed for random podcasts in the past, but this one is dedicated completely to students.

And I think our current students at our institutions are our best marketers. More people are interested in pharmacy. And as you know, enrollment in colleges of pharmacy is down nationwide. So, uh, what better way to market your institution than to showcase a student who is just a rockstar and who is so excited to graduate to enter our profession, and who's willing to share their hopes and dreams and desires and their journey with the world.

I mean, they each had a podcast. Guest has surprised me in a different way because. 

[01:05:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: Exactly. Well, the thing is too Brooke, as yet, you don't, you're bringing your own flavor. You don't need to look if there's other podcasters out there because they're getting, let's say there's 300,000 pharmacists in the U S they might be getting a negative reaction from 150,000 of them.

So even if you're one of, one of, one or one of 30 podcasts that are getting the message out there, the, just that long drawn out message of how people really think. And I'm sure in the time there you're talking to the students, well, let me put it this way. In the time you're talking to the students, it gives them time to share theirs.

Questions about it and what they found out. And there might be questions that someone else doesn't find out and then they don't take that 

[01:05:51] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: road, you know? Right. It's been amazing that the second podcast guest, she admitted that she has been applying to pharmacy schools for years, just trying to, just try to get back in.

And so she's considered a second time pharmacy student because something happened the first time she was in pharmacy school and then had to take a break. So that was an interesting story of just perseverance and resilience of just sticking with your dream. This was her dream. And, uh, after rejection letter, after rejection letter just kept trying.

And then the third podcast, guests who didn't see an organization for LGBTQ students at the institution. So he found it. Yeah. You know, just what, uh, how inspired. 

[01:06:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, right. Right. All right. So Brooke, I'm trying to get out of your 10 year dream for this. But the problem is we're still a little bit early.

You don't know where it's, we don't know where it's going to go, but let me 

[01:06:43] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: write, right. Not yet. And you know, like I said, I listened to a lot of your previous episodes and I'm just so honored. You asked me because I feel like your other guests have been so much further along in their journey. 

[01:06:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: They're 

either liars or I cut it out.

No, I'm just kidding. 

[01:06:59] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah, again, I'm just here to kind of show students like you can start, you can start something from scratch. This is 

possible. 

[01:07:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: There's two ways basically to bring your mission out. One is to fake it til you make it. The other one is to show your journey. And I think you've, you've chosen a great path of showing your journey because this is what the students are going to have to do.

They have to find their journey. And so for you to say, I don't really know where I'm going in three or five years with this perfect. That's what your students are going through. They don't know where they're going. They don't need you to come on and say, I'm going to do this, this, this, and this, because.

They need to, you're the, you're the best role model that they can have, someone who, who would think someone at your level would pick up something new and then not know where to go with it. Because in most cases they're looking at you and they're saying, well, any teacher who's been there this long, of course they were staying for tenure, then this, and now they're thinking about, you know, retirement versus using no, I'm in your same boat.

I'm not going to, I'm not going back to school per se, but I'm starting something. And I don't know where it's going to go with it. 

[01:08:11] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think you hit the nail on the head and I'm just coming from a place of wanting to give back to my profession and do it in a fun and innovative way.

And I'm ambitious and I'm driven. And I would like to just, I like the 

[01:08:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: journey. Yeah. If you had to take a year off right now, no pharmacy. No, no business building or anything, but you can come back to it all. What would you be doing for a year? I personally, 

[01:08:40] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: maybe I would read a book, maybe talk about some of the roller coaster of a career I've had.

And I think there's some lessons in there that might speak to other people. I don't know, but I would like to read it all out and see what, see what the end product would be. 

[01:08:53] Mike Koelzer, Host: Writing a book has really something because in the few bestsellers that I've had, um, 

[01:09:00] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I can't wait to buy them now on Amazon, 

[01:09:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: As the owner of my independent pharmacy, they say that you should write policies, make decisions, right.

Procedures, and so on lead as if you have 500 stores, because then you're doing it with a purpose, some structure you don't allow. One employed to think they're running the show. Basically it forces you to say, is this really running or is this just running on the whims of the owner of such and such a pharmacist or something, it forces you, it forces you to get it out of your head and say, is this, is this real?

Is this practical? Same thing with the book though. I mean, even if nobody reads your book, not that I would ever experience that, but if no one reads your book or it doesn't matter because it forces you to get it out and it structures it out of your head. 

[01:09:59] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Right. And yeah, I love writing and I have the blog for, uh, the 21st century farm DL.

So I have the blog for pharmacists moms group with Susie Solomon, who I know you entered. And I guess I've been journaling since age 11. So I love writing. I love getting things out of here and onto paper, but none of it is structured 

[01:10:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: or Brooke structure it goes into like Amazon. That's how I did. Amazon has got one now called, um, create space.

And mine was a couple of years ago, but it's similar to an anchor where you'd go in. You'd put these all together and put them into a book as simple as doing the, as simple as doing the podcast and then you'd finish 

[01:10:37] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: it and then I'll have, I'll have the third thing to thank you for inviting me, inviting me and then showing me the anchor link and then becoming an author.

[01:10:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: And then you can tell your students, you can say, you can say I'm an author and you gotta, you gotta drop the R at the end. Yes, they have to say goodbye. Well, I was 

[01:11:03] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: going to talk to you because my students really want to hear from you. They want to hear from the independent. They don't give them a lot of exposure to independent talk.

They want to hear me. So that's why I'm so glad you're part of the Facebook group, because you know, they know you have a podcast, but they may not realize what you do and they have questions about, is it worth it? 

[01:11:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: I want to come on for a question to answer on a screen. 

[01:11:28] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Let's do that. So, you know, I post those videos where I interview people.

So let's do it. You and me, and we'll talk about being an 

[01:11:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: independent owner. Yeah. And then we'll have anonymous questions and we won't read them until you get on the air and we'll read all that stuff that you add to that, that you had to put up with. So, Brooke, right now, if I'm a student and I'm at another university or I'm at a pre-pharmacy thing, or I'm interested in mentorship, whatever, whatever I want to do to get a hold of you, where should people go to get a little taste of things, please 

[01:12:03] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: connect with me on.

Uh, I'd like to post things there. My blog posts opportunities with 21st century pharm D things that I think are interesting in pharmacy and non pharmacy industries. So definitely connect with them. LinkedIn it's Brooke Griffin. And then my website is 21st century farm d.com. Sign up for my newsletter because there are going to be some unique things coming out of there.

And then there's a Facebook group, not a page, but a group of 21st century pharm D. And that's really for anybody, uh, to be a part of this community, students, faculty, practicing pharmacists, and we just engage with students in all kinds of fun ways. You get to see my crazy videos and I also have a podcast challenge.

So I'd like to interview at least one student from every single pharmacy school. Um, we only have a few lined up so far. So, uh, if you know of a student who you think should be featured, if you want your college of pharmacy, And email me and my email is 21st century pharm D at Gmail. 

[01:13:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: If there's a pharmacist listening that thinks they might have some advice, if they join that group, are they able to interact with some of the students that might be asking questions and so on?

[01:13:15] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Good question. Absolutely. And I encourage it. You know, I don't just want this to be the Brooke Griffin show. I want it to be a community where pharmacy students feel safe asking questions and that practicing pharmacists who have all these experiences and these different pharmacy industries are able to respond to students in different ways.

The, um, one of the things that we noticed was that, um, some pharmacists do have some. Uh, products and services that they sell on the side. So we have a one day kind of self promo day where everyone posts their product or service that they're selling on one day. So I wouldn't say it's particularly a market to get a bunch of buyers for things, but more of an open space communication capability.

Do you 

[01:13:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: Think someday that if I promise not to, um, cousin give bad advice, like I have been to the students that you'll unblocked me.

I'm not blocked yet. No, 

[01:14:12] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: all that I was blocked. I want you, I want you in there. I want you to comment. Are you sure you need to hear from someone like you? 

[01:14:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: I think we should keep it in more of a controlled setting. 

[01:14:21] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I hear from faculty all the time. They want to hear from alumni. They want to hear from practicing pharmacists in the real world.

This 

[01:14:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: is really something fantastic that you're doing for the students and future pharmacists. 

[01:14:34] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: I'm just trying to meet people where they're at. Which is online. It's audio. It's 

[01:14:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: virtual. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. All right, Brooke, we'll be in touch. 

[01:14:44] Brooke Griffin, PharmD: Thank you so much.